The purpose of this article is to bring home the folly of belief in naturalistic evolution. The point is belabored intentionally because evolutionists frequently argue that probability considerations do not disprove evolution.

Unfortunately, in the long run, the unjustified materialistic assumptions of modern scientific naturalism can only prove a serious embarrassment to modern science. Evolutionary science today is in the unenviable position of the emperor with no clothes on. No one has the daring to tell the poor man he is naked until a little child exclaims what is obvious to everyone. Modern science, in its naturalistic speculation, is naked today, with only a few "children"—non-evolutionary and creationist scientists—willing to shout the obvious.

We can illustrate the embarrassment of modern science by considering its attempt to explain the origin of the material universe from either 1) literally nothing or 2) virtually nothing. Equally embarrassing is its attempt to explain life from non-life.

In fact, two of the most unbelievable scenarios of the modern evolutionary story are that 1) nothing created the material universe and 2) lifeless matter created all living diversity in its endless life forms.

Both of these scenarios are so implausible that, rationally, they must be considered nonsense. In fact, both assumptions are flat out impossible.

The laws of probability govern all kinds of daily activities from calculating insurance rates to large purchase orders. The science of probability is one of the trustworthiest disciplines there is. And it has a logical bearing on the issue of origins:

When one reads through the literature on evolution that discusses the probability of the evolution of life, one finds all sorts of euphemisms for the word impossible including "terribly low;" "not conceivable;" "infinitesimally small;" "highly implausible" and "unimaginably small."

It would appear that these terms are used because there is no other choice. To really believe in what is impossible is absurd. Evolutionary scientists do not want to be seen as believers of the absurd.

We have no qualms about using the word "impossible" if it fits. And when considering naturalistic evolution, no other word is even adequate.

We later cite Nobelist Dr. George Wald who concluded that the spontaneous generation of a living organism was impossible. He went on to say that, even so, he chose to believe that spontaneous generation occurred because after all, here we are. He argued that time was the hero of the plot.

In many ways, time is the hero of the plot for the evolutionist. It’s even a "deity" of sorts. The evolutionist says that time and chance created life whereas the theist says that God created life. The problem is that time and chance cannot produce miracles. Contrary to Dr. Wald’s assertion, time cannot make the impossible inevitable. Even infinite time cannot change an apple into a helicopter or a frog into a prince. To think so is to believe either in absurdities or fairy tales. As Dr. Gish illustrates in his Evolution: The Fossils Still Say No (1995 p. 5):

Frog + time (instantaneous) > Prince = nursery tale

but

Frog + time (300 million years) > Prince = science

Further, the fact that we exist does not prove evolution occurred, unless one assumes that life only originates by naturalistic evolution. At this point, many evolutionists criticize creation scientists for making the same kinds of assumptions they make. Creationists argue the fact of the impossibility of evolution proves creation. Evolutionists argue that the fact of life proves evolution.

But is evolution really proven? Is it even probable? Is it even possible?

Remember what we have to do is to evolve life. We only have chance and dead matter or lifeless chemicals to start the process. These must make the leap to a small prebiotic molecule (e.g., an amino acid, sugar, nucleic acid base). This molecule must then make an incredible leap to a larger molecule (e.g., a polymer of amino acids). Then there is an even greater leap to the first primitive cell and then the unheard of leap to the first form of complex life such as an eucaryote cell having an organized nucleus bound by a membrane. Then evolution has to produce every living thing.

W. R. Bird, author of a definitive critique of evolution, The Origin of Species Revisited points out that for the evolution of life, "Such small probabilities are treated as impossibility under statistical rules, in the context of the possible number of events in the entire universe during its entire age."²

Even some evolutionists will admit the impossibility of evolution. For example, Ambrose of the University of London writes concerning the emergence of new species, "the probability is so small in terms of the known age of the universe that it is effectively zero."³

Creationists and non-evolutionists that have studied probability considerations have long argued that, for all practical purposes, they show evolution to be impossible. What evolutionists don’t want to admit is that, even when you adjust for their criticisms of probability calculations, the effect is still to make evolution an impossibility.⁴ Let’s consider some examples of scientists and researchers who have stated this.

According to Walter James ReMine in his impressive anti-evolutionary text, The Biotic Message, "The origin of life by chance in a primeval soup is impossible in probability in the same way that a perpetual motion machine is impossible in probability…. A practical person must conclude that life didn’t happen by chance."⁵

In "Was Evolution Really Possible?" Moshe Trop, Ph.D., with the Department of Life Sciences, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel, concludes his discussion by noting that "All calculations made of the probability [that life could evolve by chance, lead to the conclusion that] there could have been no possibility of the random appearance of life…."⁶

In his article, "The Queen of Science Examines the King of Fools," David J. Rodabaugh, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Mathematics at the University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, shows that given all the time evolutionists claim is necessary, the probability that a simple living organism could be produced by mutations "is so small as to constitute a scientific impossibility" — "the chance that it could have happened anywhere in the universe… is less than 1 [chance] in 10^2,999,942."⁷ A figure like this is termed exponential notation, and is the figure one with almost three million zeros after it. Figures like this are terminal to evolution. (We will discuss exponential notation shortly.)

In another article, Dr. Rodabaugh takes the argument to absurd levels to show that "It is impossible that evolution occurred." Even giving evolution every conceivable chance and even "assuming that evolution is 99.9999% certain, then ‘evolution [still] has only a 1 in 10¹³² chance of being valid…. Therefore, even with the beginning assumption that evolution is a virtual certainty, a conditional probability analysis of the fossil record [alone] results in the conclusion that evolution is a demonstrable absurdity.’"⁸

According to the French expert on probability, Emile Borél, his "single law of chance" (1 chance in 10⁵⁰) beyond which things never occur, "carries with it a certainty of another nature than mathematical certainty… it is comparable even to the certainty with which we attribute to the existence of the external world."⁹ Here we see that one chance in 10¹³² is no chance.

Using probability and other calculations, James F. Coppedge, author of Evolution: Possible or Impossible?, concludes concerning the origin of chirality, or "left-handed" amino acids that,

Indeed, "The odds against the necessary group of proteins being all left-handed ‘is beyond all comprehension.’"¹¹

As the reader can see, when we employ probability calculations relative to the origin of life, we end up with very large numbers, unimaginably large numbers. In part, that’s the problem. These numbers are so incomprehensible they almost become meaningless. Nevertheless, if evolutionists can use an incomprehensible billions of years of earth history to make evolution seem feasible, we can also use incomprehensible numbers to show the absurdity of evolution, even if these numbers do tend to bend the mind at dizzying speeds.

To help the reader understand large numbers, we have prepared a chart of illustrations. Again, these very large numbers are written using exponential notation. Thus, for ease of writing, rather than write out all the zeros in a large number, the number of zeros is placed above the number 10. For example, the figure one million, having six zeros, is written exponentially as 10⁶; one billion, with nine zeros, is 10⁹; one trillion, with twelve zeros, is 10¹², etc. The kinds of numbers we are dealing with involve hundreds to billions of zeroes, depending on what we are trying to calculate and the odds assigned to a given event. (In the calculations below, the odds cited are often skewed vastly in favor of evolution. This shows that even given odds that were not present, evolution is still impossible.)

To begin, let’s show you what 10⁵⁰ looks like written out: 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. It would require hundreds of millions of years just to count a number this large.

If we say an event has one chance in 10⁵⁰ of occurring, this is what we refer to. Again, this figure represents Borél’s "single law of chance," the odds beyond which things never occur. One chance in 10⁵⁰ is an unimaginably small number—it’s one chance in 100 trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion. One chance in a billion is an almost infinitely greater chance for an event to occur. If the one billion people in China each bought one lottery ticket, each person’s chance of winning would be one in 10⁹—one chance in a billion. So how much money do you think an evolutionist would bet on the lottery if the odds of winning were one chance in 10⁵⁰?

A person could only be considered a fool if they bet their entire life savings on even one chance in a thousand—1 in 10³. The irony is that evolutionists are gambling on an issue far more vital to them than retirement money with, for all practical purposes, literally infinite odds against them. They are gambling on the nature of ultimate reality, the odds that materialism is true and theism false. If probability calculations relative to prophecy and other considerations prove Christian theism true¹²—and heaven or hell hang in the balance—one might assume people would be very cautious about the risks they take. Apparently not.

In the chart, Comparison of Exponential Numbers, we can see how big exponential numbers truly are. We ask the reader to now look over this chart. Ponder its comparisons in order to get a "feel" for the kinds of numbers we are dealing with. Only this will help us realize the kinds of odds against evolution that we are discussing.

Comparison of Exponential Numbers

In the material that follows, we are going to discuss the odds of two very "simple" things evolving: 1) a molecule and 2) a cell. Remember that thousands and millions of these are needed for life to evolve, and not even the higher forms of life. To begin, consider the following information about molecules:

• A single drop of blood has 35,000,000 red blood cells.

• A single red blood cell has 280,000,000 hemoglobin molecules, each molecule having 10,000 atoms.

• A single man has 27,000,000,000,000 (27 X 10¹²) red blood cells.

• Molecules are so small that 1/4 teaspoon of water has 10²⁴ of them. Molecules vary from the simple to the complex. A simple molecule may consist of only a few bonded atoms, as in water (two atoms hydrogen; one atom oxygen). A complex molecule of protein may have 50,000 amino acids or chains of simpler molecules.

Noted astronomer Fred Hoyle uses the Rubik cube to illustrate the odds of getting a single molecule, in this case a biopolymer. Biopolymers are biological polymers, i.e., large molecules such as nucleic acids or proteins. In the fascinating illustration below, he calls the idea that chance could originate a biopolymer "nonsense of a high order":

DeNouy provides another illustration for arriving at a single molecule of high dissymmetry through chance action and normal thermic agitation. He assumes 500 trillion shakings per second plus a liquid material volume equal to the size of the earth. For one molecule it would require "10²⁴³ billions of years." Even if this molecule did somehow arise by chance, it is still only one single molecule. Hundreds of millions are needed, requiring compound probability calculations for each successive molecule. His logical conclusion is that "it is totally impossible to account scientifically for all phenomena pertaining to life."¹⁴

Even 50 years ago, scientist Harold F. Blum, writing in Time’s Arrow and Evolution, wrote that, "The spontaneous formation of a polypeptide of the size of the smallest known proteins seems beyond all probability."¹⁵

Noted creation scientists Walter L. Bradley and Charles Thaxton, authors of The Mystery of Life’s Origin: Reassessing Current Theories, point out that the probability of assembling amino acid building blocks into a functional protein is approximately one chance in 4.9 X 10¹⁹¹.¹⁶ "Such improbabilities have led essentially all scientists who work in the field to reject random, accidental assembly or fortuitous good luck as an explanation for how life began."¹⁷ Now, if a figure as "small" as 5 chances in 10¹⁹¹ is referenced by such a statement, then what are we to make of the kinds of probabilities below that are infinitely less? The mind simply boggles at the remarkable faith of the materialist.

According to Coppedge, the probability of evolving a single protein molecule over 5 billion years is estimated at 1 chance in 10¹⁶¹. This even allows some 14 concessions to help it along which would not actually be present during evolution.¹⁸ Again, this is no chance.

Consider that the smallest theoretical cell is made up of 239 proteins. Further, at least 124 different types of proteins are needed for the cell to become a living thing. But the simplest known self-reproducing organisms is the H³⁹ strain of PPLO (mycoplasma) containing 625 proteins with an average of 400 amino acids in each protein.

Yet the probability of the occurrence of the smallest theoretical life is only one chance in 10^119,879 and the years required for it to evolve would be 10^119,841 years or 10^119,831 times the assumed age of the earth!¹⁹ The probability of this smallest theoretical cell of 239 proteins evolving without the needed 124 different types of proteins to make up a living cell, i.e., the chance of evolving this "helpless group of non-living molecules" in over 500 billion years is one chance in 10^119,701.²⁰ Dr. David J. Rodabough, Associate Professor of Mathematics at the University of Missouri, estimated the more realistic chance that life would spontaneously generate (even on 10²³ planets) as only one chance in 10^2,999,940.²¹

Whether we are talking about giving evolution every conceivable chance to evolve a single protein molecule or the smallest theoretical cell, the odds are still impossible.²²

In the 1970s Sir Frederick Hoyle calculated the mathematical probability that a single bacterium could be spontaneously generated. He determined the chance of this occurring was 1 in 10^40,000.

Hoyle confessed what most scientists are, strangely, unwilling to confess, "The likelihood of the formation of life from inanimate matter is one to a number with 40 thousand naughts [zeros after it]. It is enough to bury Darwin and the whole theory of evolution. There was no primeval soup, neither on this planet or on any other, and if the beginnings of life were not random they must therefore have been the product of purposeful intelligence."²³

But Harold Morowitz, a Yale University physicist, gave a far more realistic "probability" for a single bacterium. He calculated the odds of a single bacterium emerging from the basic building blocks necessary were 1 chance in 10^{100,000,000,000}.²⁴

This number is so large it would require a library of approximately 100,000 books just to write it out! Ponder that!

In his book, Origins—A Skeptic’s Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth, Robert Shapiro comments concerning the probabilities calculated by Morowitz,

Again, these numbers are unimaginable. That’s why even scientists don’t know what to do with them. Consider that a given individual’s chance of winning the state lottery is about one in ten million. The odds of winning each successive week involve the multiplication of probabilities so that the odds of winning the lottery every single week of your life from the age of 18 to 99, a period of 80 years, is 1 chance in 4.6 X 10^29,120. In other words, it is infinitely more likely that you would win the lottery every week of your life consecutively, from the day you were born, without missing even one winning weekly ticket, for 80 years, than it is that we would have the spontaneous generation of a simple bacterium.²⁶

Physicist Dr. Howard B. Holroyd refers to the book, Mathematics and the Imagination, where the authors, Kasner and Newman, name the extremely large number 10¹⁰⁰, a "googol." Noting the fact that there could only, at most, have been 4.8 X 10³⁸ possible mutations in all the life forms throughout the history of earth Dr. Holroyd writes,

Dr. Holroyd also discusses factorial numbers. A factorial number is a number that multiplies each successive number by the next number. So ten factorial would be to multiply 1 X 2 X 3 X 4 X 5 X 6 X 7 X 8 X 9 X 10. Seventy factorial is around a googol (1.198 X 10¹⁰⁰). Sir Arthur Eddington estimated the total number of electrons and protons in the entire universe as approximately 3.145 X 10⁷⁹. This is infinitely less than 100 factorial, which equals 9.3 X 10¹⁵⁷. But when it comes to evolution, we are not dealing with 100 factorial but millions X millions factorial. To illustrate, there are 5,000 fibers in the auditory nerve of man that may be connected to the brain in 5,000-factorial ways—and probably only one is correct. The optic nerve has about one million fibers, and these may be connected to the brain in one million factorial ways. The odds they could have been connected correctly by chance cannot even be written out longhand. Holroyd proceeds to show by several other examples how absurd belief in chance evolution is. He points out that the straight hydrocarbon chain C₄₀H⁸² has about 6.25 X 10¹³ isomers. It would be impossible for the entire human race, working full time for four billion years, just to study all the isomers of this single organic molecule of no great size.²⁸ (Yet it just happened to evolve by chance.) When we consider there are ten billion cells in the cerebral cortex, that there are several trillion nerve connections between cells in the brain, plus many other amazing factors, it becomes "preposterous beyond words" to believe that all this originated by chance:

The point here is that the existence of mankind—or of living things generally—isn’t just one miracle, it is a succession of innumerable miracles. Every beneficial combination of factors to produce the simplest mechanism for evolution to occur would require more miracles.

All this and more are why evolution can rationally be classified as one of the "worst superstitions of all time."³⁰ And it explains why Dr. Holroyd is correct in concluding that evolution is not just physical and mathematical nonsense, "it is logical nonsense as well, for a sound thinker does not assume anything which must be deduced from his theory."³¹

So perhaps now we have some idea of the odds against evolution. Neither words nor figures can adequately convey them. But two final illustrations may help.

On a cross-country drive, co-author John Weldon drove through the great state of Texas. As he drove through Texas, he was reminded of an illustration of Professor Don Stoner used in our book on messianic prophecy.³² In that book we showed that the odds that, by chance alone, Jesus would fulfill only eight Old Testament prophecies, was 1 in 10¹⁷. To illustrate how infinitesimal such a chance is we used the state of Texas. First, we filled the entire state of Texas two feet deep with silver dollars. We marked one with an "X" and stirred up all the silver dollars throughout the state. Then, we blindfolded, say, an evolutionist, had him drive anywhere he wished in the state of Texas, stop, get out of his car, reach down into the silver dollars and pick one out. The odds that he would find the one marked silver dollar are 1 in 10¹⁷, or one in one hundred quadrillion, or one in 100 million billion. Now, anyone who has driven through Texas knows how long it takes. You drive and drive and drive for hours before you reach another state. If you imagine that as you drive, everywhere you look, the land is covered with silver dollars two feet deep, the mind boggles—and yet your field of vision from the road is only an infinitesimal part of Texas. To drive the entire state so that you saw every acre would take years.

Yet this number, one chance in 10¹⁷, is nothing compared to one chance in 10^1,000, the chance distinguished evolutionists gave for the formation of a simply precursor to life. Trying to comprehend one chance in 10^{100,000,000,000}, the chance development of a simple bacterium, would drive one insane. In telling us to believe that such odds are not only conceivable but also probable, evolutionists would drive us all bananas.

Consider a final illustration, again of a number infinitely smaller than 10^1,000.

How large is the number one in 10¹⁵⁷? 10¹⁵⁷ contains 157 zeros. Let us try to illustrate the size of this number.

Electrons are very small objects. They are much, much smaller than atoms. As noted, it would take 2.5 times 10¹⁵ of them, laid side-by-side, just to make one inch. Even if we counted four electrons every second and counted day and night, it would still take us 19 million years just to count a line of electrons one-inch long.

But how many electrons are we dealing with in 10¹⁵⁷ electrons? Imagine building a solid ball of electrons that would extend in all directions from the earth a length of 6 billion light years. The distance in miles of just one light year is 6.4 trillion miles. That would be an incredibly big ball! But not big enough to measure 10¹⁵⁷ electrons.

In order to do that, you must take that big ball of electrons reaching the length of 6 billion light years long in all directions and multiply it by 6 x 10²⁸! How big is that? It’s the length of the space required to store trillions and trillions and trillions of the same gigantic balls and more. In fact, the space required to store all of these balls combined together would just start to "scratch the surface" of the number of electrons we would need to really accurately speak about 10¹⁵⁷.

But assuming you have some idea of the number of electrons we are talking about, now imagine marking just one of those electrons in that huge number. Stir them all up. Then appoint an evolutionist to travel in a rocket for as long as he wants, anywhere he wants to go in a 30 billion light year diameter. Tell him to stop and segment a part of space, then take a high-powered microscope and find that one marked electron in that segment. What do you think would be his chances for success? It would be one in 10¹⁵⁷.

Again, how small is one chance in 10¹⁵⁷? The number 10¹⁵⁷ can be further illustrated this way. We earlier saw that the number of atoms in the universe was estimated at 10⁷⁸. You could take these 10⁷⁸ atoms and expand each one to the size of our own universe, with each universe having 10⁷⁸ atoms. The total number of atoms in all these 10⁷⁸ universes would be 10¹⁵⁷.

Yet we saw that Bradley and Thaxton calculated the chance that one single protein molecule would evolve at about one chance in 10¹⁹¹—odds trillions of times larger than one chance in 10¹⁵⁷.

The odds of finally evolving just one man may be conservatively put at one chance in 10^{1,000,000,000,000}. This is a figure with a trillion zeros. If written out in a single line it would extend some 300,000 miles—and circle the earth 24 times. It would require a million books just to print it! Yet again, beyond one chance in 10⁵⁰, no chance remains—ever, even in all eternity, for an event to occur.

We hope the above material has given the reader at least some small comprehension of the faith of the evolutionist. It is, again, a wonderfully large faith, a faith so large it fills the whole universe to produce miracles without end.

Dr. Harry Rimmer (SC.D., D.D.) was allegedly one of only 12 men around 1940 capable of understanding Einstein’s theory of relativity. He was precisely correct when he wrote the following:

To this point in our discussion we have cited mostly creation scientists or theists. Evolutionists may respond that creationists have a bias to uphold and thus our methodology or conclusions are suspect. So in our next two sections we will continue and amplify our probability argument exclusively from the writings of evolutionists.

The esteemed late Carl Sagan and other prominent scientists have estimated the chance of man evolving at roughly 1 chance in 10^{2,000,000,000}.³⁴ This is a figure with two billion zeros after it and would require about 2,000 books to write out. This number is so infinitely small it is not even conceivable. So, for argument’s sake, let’s take an infinitely more favorable view toward the chance that evolution might occur.

What if the chances are only 1 in 10¹⁰⁰⁰ the figure that a prestigious symposium of evolutionary scientists used computers to arrive at? This figure involved only a mechanism necessary to abiogenesis and not the evolution of actual primitive life. Regardless, this figure is also infinitely above Borél’s single law of chance—(1 chance in 10⁵⁰)—beyond which, put simply, events never occur.³⁵

On April 25 and 26, 1962, this scientific symposium was held at the Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in which some of the most distinguished evolutionist scientists were gathered.

At the beginning of this Symposium, which was entitled, "Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution," the Chairman, Sir Peter Medawar of the National Institute for Medical Research in London, England, stated the reasons why they had gathered:

In his paper, "Inadequacies of Neo-Darwinian Evolution as a Scientific Theory," Dr. Murray Eden, Professor of Electrical Engineering at MIT, emphasized the following: "It is our contention that if "random" [chance] is given a serious and crucial interpretation from a probabilistic point of view, the randomness postulate is highly implausible and that an adequate scientific theory of evolution must await the discovery and elucidation of new natural laws, physical, chemical and biological."³⁷

In "Algorithms and the Neo-Darwinian Theory of Evolution" Marcel P. Schutzenberger of the University of Paris, France, calculated the probability of evolution based on mutation and natural selection. Like many other noted scientists, he concluded that it was "not conceivable" because the probability of a chance process accomplishing this is zero:

Evolutionary scientists have called just 1 chance in 10¹⁵ "a virtual impossibility."³⁹ So, how can they believe in something that has less than 1 chance in 10¹⁰⁰⁰? After all, how small is one chance in 10¹⁰⁰⁰? It’s incredibly small—1 chance in 10¹² is only one chance in a trillion.

We can further gauge the size of 1 in 10¹⁰⁰⁰ (a figure with a thousand zeros) by considering the sample figure 10¹⁷¹. How large is this figure? First, consider again that the number of atoms in the period at the end of this sentence is approximately 3,000 trillion. Now, in 10¹⁷¹ years an amoeba could actually transport all the atoms, one at a time, in six hundred thousand, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion universes, each universe the size of ours, from one end of the universe to the other (assuming a distance of 30 billion light years) going at the dismally slow traveling speed of 1 inch every 15 billion years.⁴⁰ The amoeba could do all this in 10¹⁷¹ years. Yet this figure of one chance in 10¹⁷¹, quite literally, cannot even scratch the surface of one chance in 10¹⁰⁰⁰—the "chance" that a certain mechanism necessary to the beginning of life might supposedly evolve. Again, who can believe in something whose odds are 1 "chance" in 10¹⁰⁰⁰ to 1 "chance" in 10^{2,000,000,000} or even far beyond this? As we saw earlier, Yale University physicist Harold Morowitz once calculated the odds of a single bacteria reassembling its components after being superheated to break down its chemicals into their basic building blocks at 1 chance in 10^{100,000,000,000}.⁴¹ And, in fact, when you add up all the different odds for all the millions of miracles necessary for evolution, the actual "chances" that life could evolve probably couldn’t even be adequately expressed mathematically.

Please note that in exponential notation, every time we add a single number in the exponent, we multiply the number itself by a factor of ten. Thus, one chance in 10¹⁷² is ten times larger than one chance in 10¹⁷¹. One chance in 10¹⁷⁷ is one million times larger than one chance in 10¹⁷¹. And one chance in 10¹⁸³ is one trillion times larger than one chance in 10¹⁷¹. So where do you think we end up with odds like one chance in 10^{100,000,000,000}? In fact, the dimensions of the entire known universe can be packed full by 10⁵⁰ planets—but the odds of probability theory indicate that not on even a single planet would evolution ever occur.⁴²

This kind of probability "progression into absurdity" is the very reason Borél devised his single law of chance—to show that beyond a certain point some things will never happen. For example, what are the odds that televisions will evolve into elephants? There are none, no matter how much time we allow for the event to occur. But this is essentially what evolutionists ask us to believe—that dead matter plus time plus chance produces life.

On occasion, the argument we are making here is sometimes misunderstood. Dr. Weldon’s uncle "Sam" once heard a minister deliver a sermon in church regarding the odds against life originating by chance. The minister was stating that, based on probability considerations, it was "mathematically impossible" that the universe was created by chance. The minister greeted "Sam" after the service and asked him what he thought of the sermon. Sam replied that he had "two serious problems with it." The first was that even if there was one in a zillion chances that the universe was created by chance, then the conclusion that it was mathematically impossible for the universe to originate by chance was not valid. Even one chance in a zillion is still one chance and therefore mathematically possible. The second objection was that if there are an infinite number of opportunities for an event to occur then the odds could increase infinitely so that sooner or later the event would occur.

But again, this misses the whole point behind Borél’s single law of chance. Once we arrive at a certain point in probability considerations, no chance remains regardless of the amount of opportunities that are present. Anything beyond one chance in 10⁵⁰ is not one chance in 10⁵⁰ but 0 chance. And, as we have seen, the "chance" of evolution occurring is infinitely less than this. Probability considerations are important and do offer valid conclusions in the creation-evolution debate. They tell us there is no chance evolution will ever occur even if the universe is infinitely old.

Evolutionists respond the only way that they can. They say that given enough time even the impossible becomes possible. Nobel Prize winning biologist George Wald of Harvard University once wrote, "One only has to concede the magnitude of the task to concede the possibility of the spontaneous generation of a living organism is impossible. Yet here we are—as a result, I believe, of spontaneous generation."⁴³

Wald proceeds to discuss what he means by "impossible." Not unexpectedly, he claims that the word "is not a very meaningful concept."⁴⁴ He goes on to say that, in terms of originating life, "Time is in fact the hero of the plot. The time with which we have to deal is of the order of 2 billion years. What we regard as impossible on the basis of human experience is meaningless here. Given so much time, the ‘impossible’ becomes possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain. One has only to wait: time itself performs the miracles."⁴⁵

Oh? Given probability considerations, on what logical basis does Dr. Wald go from the impossible to the "virtually certain"? Wald is arguing as a committed materialist who has great faith in the magical powers of matter. Even though evolution is impossible, it really can’t be impossible because after all, here we are. Later he states, "We can be certain that, given time, all these things [necessary to evolution] must occur. Every substance that has ever been found in an organism displays thereby the finite probability of its occurrence. Hence, given time, it should arise spontaneously. One only has to wait."⁴⁶

What we are dealing with here is word games; the impossible is really possible; an event is conceded as impossible so we invoke infinite time and material to make it "possible."

Dr. Wald himself has stated that a 99.999% probability is "almost inevitable."⁴⁷ A little calculation shows that Wald’s initial statement that spontaneous generation was impossible is far closer to the truth than he himself proceeds to argue in his own chapter.

The word impossible is defined in the dictionary as, "Not possible, unable to be done or to exist" and "not capable of coming into being or occurring." Also, we don’t have infinite time, we only have a few billion years even by evolutionists calculations and these calculations themselves are suspect. Nor do we have anywhere near infinite material; it was quite finite and limited. Thus, if an event is truly impossible, then it will never occur by definition even given infinite time and material. "…as Saki wisely observed: Those who use ‘chance’ to argue that ‘anything is possible’ have reached the antithesis of science, whose laws are based upon the assumption that some things occur and others do not."⁴⁸ Evolutionists should reconsider the following statement from a standard evolutionary text on the origin of life. The Origin of Pre-biological Systems, edited by Sidney W. Fox, states:

Sir John Eccles, winner of the Nobel Prize and one of the foremost brain scientists in this century speaks of one chance in 10^10,000 as being "infinitely improbable," noting that "materialists’ solutions fail to account for our experienced uniqueness" and that therefore "we are constrained to attribute uniqueness of the psyche or soul to a supernatural spiritual creation…. We submit that no other explanation is tenable…."⁵⁰

We can only wonder, what kind of logic deduces that the infinitely more complex things in nature resulted from chance when all the facts and evidence we possess concerning every single man-made object in existence around the world says these much simpler objects had to result from intelligence, plan and design? If the "simple" objects demand intelligence, how do the infinitely more complex objects not demand it at all?

Further, if, in ultimate terms, there are only two possible answers to the question of origins, then the disproving of one should logically prove the other. If the chances of evolution occurring are e.g., "one" in 10^{1,000,000,000,000}, then the chance of creation occurring would have to be its opposite—the odds being 99.9 (followed by one trillion more 9’s). Again, George Wald of Harvard has stated that a 99.995% probability is "almost inevitable."⁵¹ Then what of 99.999999999999999 (plus one trillion more 9’s)?—the "chance" that creation has occurred?

Thus, it is not surprising to hear famous astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle originator of the Steady State theory of the origin of the universe concede that the chance that higher life forms might have emerged through evolutionary processes is comparable with the chance that a "tornado sweeping through a junk yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the material therein."⁵² As he ponders the magnificence of the world about him, even the outstanding French biochemist and Nobel Prize winner Jacques Monod admits in his Chance and Necessity:

One may well find oneself beginning to doubt again whether all this could conceivably be the product of an enormous lottery presided over by natural selection, blindly picking the rare winners from among numbers drawn at utter random…. [Nevertheless although] the miracle [of life] stands "explained"; it does not strike us as any less miraculous. As Francois Mauriac wrote, "What this professor says is far more incredible than what we poor Christians believe."⁵³

Although Monod believes that life arose by chance, he freely admits the chances of this happening before it occurred were virtually zero:

The riddle remains, and in so doing masks the answer to a question of profound interest. Life appeared on earth: what, before the event were the chances that this would occur? The present structure of the biosphere far from excludes the possibility that the decisive event occurred only once. Which would mean that its a priori probability was virtually zero.⁵⁴

A number of reputable scientists have stated their belief that evolution is a myth. In the following material we are going to briefly amplify this idea by concentrating on the myth of chance and what faith in chance does to science. In Not a Chance: The Myth of Chance in Modern Science & Cosmology, theologian and apologist R. C. Sproul points out that mythology was not only practiced by pre-modern cultures. It occurs in every culture and has even intruded significantly into the realm of science, e.g., in the spontaneous generation theory of evolution, that all life arose from dead matter solely by chance. He shows that the concept of chance—something happening totally without cause—is impossible. Again, the Macmillan Dictionary for Students (1984) defines impossible as, "not capable of coming into being or occurring"; "not possible" and "not acceptable as truth."

And yet modern science argues that the universe and all life in it arose solely by chance. In the words of Nobelist Jacques Monod, "…chance alone is at the source of every innovation, of all creation in the biosphere. Pure chance, absolutely free but blind, [is] at the very root of the stupendous edifice of evolution…."⁵⁵

Sproul argues persuasively that, for science and philosophy to continue in fruitful fashion, the modern penchant for chance must be abandoned once and for all. If not, the stakes are not insignificant—the very possibility of doing science lies in the balance. Essentially, when logic and empirical data are neglected or neutralized in the doing of science, then "mythology is free to run wild."⁵⁶

Modern science’s assigning the origin of the universe and all life in it to pure, random chance does an incalculable disservice to science because it:

Chance can explain nothing because chance itself is nothing: "chance has no power to do anything. It is cosmically, totally, consummately impotent…. It has no power because it has no being."⁵⁸ One of the most inviolate and oldest laws of science is Ex nihilo nihil fit—"Out of nothing, nothing comes." When scientists ascribe absolute power to nothing, they are creating myths. Here, chance is the "magic wand to make not only rabbits but entire universes appear out of nothing."⁵⁹

Consider again the Nobel-laureate and Harvard Professor Dr. George Wald when he stated concerning the evolution of life, "Given so much time, the ‘impossible’ becomes possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain. One only has to wait: time itself performs the miracles."⁶⁰

Time is indeed the hero of the plot in the modern evolutionary storybook. Professor Abdus Salam, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics, comments that one reason the Big Bang occurred ten billion years ago was that "it takes about that long for intelligent beings to evolve…."⁶¹

Sir John Eccles, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine comments in a similar fashion, "You cannot make life out of hydrogen and helium, and that was the original stuff. You have to have the time for the creation of all the extraordinary elements that are necessary for living existence, and so you will have to have, shall we say, something like 10,000 million years from the Big Bang...."⁶²

Again, time is not the hero and cannot perform miracles. To argue otherwise violates the laws of science, logic and common sense. Regardless, how did the universe exist forever and then do in time (i.e., create life) what it had not done forever?

Sproul comments,

A. E. Wilder-Smith, holding three earned doctorates in science, put it this way:

Of course, as Wilder-Smith argues, it doesn’t explain anything. Further, to argue as modern science does that the universe "exploded into being" billions of years ago require the belief that the universe exploded from nonbeing into being. Since science has proven that matter cannot be eternal, this phrase must be taken literally. But to do so requires more faith in magic and is, in effect, a faith in self-creation, which, as Sproul shows, is something logically impossible. Thus:

Of course, there is much more going on here than poor science. In Romans 1:18-25 we are told that the unregenerate deliberately suppress the truth of God as Creator. Here the truth is suppressed by the rejection of the laws of science such as the law of causality, the law of noncontradiction and the law of biogenesis, that life arises only from life. That the rejection of scientific principles, laws and reasoning should be so forcefully employed in defense of what is inherently irrational and impossible (the creation of the universe from nothing), is surely a commentary on the condition of modern origins science.

However, because God has created us as rational creatures, it may even be argued that modern science’s sin against reason is a sin against God. Scientists should know better. And, generally, in their rational moments they do. They know the universe didn’t arise from literally nothing. The suppression of truth is to try and make it seem as if it did. That is the sin. Most scientists, it seems, prefer to disguise their belief in magic by making the idea of chance origins appear scientific and rational. Why? Because often they do not personally like the consequences of having to seriously consider the implications of a personal creator God who will hold them accountable in this life. Given the odds against evolution and for creation, this is an unwise position at best. The conclusions of Solomon still stand: